The Immortal DHC-2 Beaver

[Bamboo Cougar]

I don't have underwater egress training, so I'll pass on the opportunity Pete.

 

bc

[Pete_SMS]

Sunday Beaver Update 22

 

Hey,

 

As promised here a few more in-sim shots, showing the liveries for the final release. Since I already showed the two liveries for the amphibious version this week, I will continue now with the regular tire and cargo version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and now I come to the release date:

 

It will be May 2015.

 

I hope you like what you see!

 

Have a nice weekend,

Pete

[ointment]

…and one more thing….

 

Looks amazing!  Things are looking good for a sweet spring!

[osprey05]

Thanks for the good news and pix.

 

Let us know if there will be pre-orders taken.

 

I am looking forward to May.

[Xflyboy]

Very nice!

[Pete_SMS]

 

Just relaxing my brain a bit 

[almostpilot]

When is this available please? been waiting for years and almost forgot about it...

[almostpilot]

MAY 2015… HOPE SO!

[almostpilot]

Love the liveries. Where will it be available to buy?

And please please make it the beginning of May, not the end!

Cannot wait any longer!

[Pete_SMS]

Sunday Beaver Update 23

 

Hello,

 

Time for another Sunday Beaver Update.  I made some great progress during the last week and I wanted to share what I did and also show some screenshots.

 

Well, I finally added some cold and dark pre-flight elements to the Beaver like the pitot-heat cover, wheel chocks and some heavy gear to fix the aircraft on ground in these strong alaskan winds.  

 

 

 

 

I also added a pilot to the cockpit now and he is only visible when you view the aircraft from outside.

 

Did I add some fancy head and body  movement yet? Nope, I didn't, because this is not one of my priorities for the first release. Will I add it down the road? Most probably. It is not that hard to do.

 

If you are not spending hours watching the pilot from the outside in awe, I guess you appreciate more that I rather spend my time to work on a more realistic pitot-heat and icing simulation, instead using the standard X-Plane one. From my point of view this is adding much more value than having this little guys dancing around.  He is there, he looks good and that's it for now.

 

As you know I was talking about having three versions for the first release. The regular tire version, the cargo version and the amphibious version. That is still the case, but rather having these kind of fixed models, I added more flexibility. When you fly the tire version, you can decide via a menu, if you like the regular tires or the tundra tires.

 

In addition to that, you can now have three different cabin configurations. Also these can be controlled via a menu without reloading the aircraft. I will make it so, that you can save your settings, so that you don't have to reload your prefered setting every time. The cabin configurations are the following:

 

Full Pax Version

 

Pax / Cargo Mix

 

Full Cargo Version

 

I worked on a few other cool things too, but I will report about them in one of my next Sunday Updates. All in all I am really happy and that I made it this far after the last 2 years.

 

Along my journey to my first X-Plane product, so many obstacles have been thrown in my way that it would have been easy to say "Okay, Okay, I understand, I guess this X-Plane thing isn't supposed to be. I am going to quit and let it go." 

 

I have to admit that I had these thoughts too and was very close to just do that, but thinking about why I am doing all this and adjusting my mindset helped me a lot. The goal to produce the best bush plane simulation out there and to deliver great value to you as a customer pushed me through these hard times. I have the feeling that obstacles are thron in your way for a reason. It is a test of how bad you want something, your character, your passion and if you are aligned with what you do. 

 

I promised to deliver the Beaver and I DO WHAT I SAID I DO. This is one of my bigger forces driving me. Putting somebody down who was waiting for the Beaver, following me all these years by saying "The Beaver project is dead"? NO WAY!

 

So the Beaver will be availabe for you in a few weeks and I am really pushing hard to make this date. I even implemented some features that were not planned or on my radar, but htey were far too cool to leave them out. And one of the coolest feature will be kind of a "First in X-Plane" and I will report about that in one of my next Sunday Updates, but it is something bush pilots will enjoy for sure. 

 

Oh by the way, the Sunday Updates will now become EVERY Sunday Updates again. 

 

So stay tuned and spread the word.

 

You all have a great Sunday,

Pete

[Xflyboy]

Getting close to release just ups the drool factor, what's another month in the scheme of things.

 

Thanks for the update Pete, I know it's been a long road for you!

Edited April 27, 2015 by Xflyboy

[Jakob Ludwig]

Great news Pete. Regarding the ground handling, is it managable at stronger wind conditions, pointing out the messy ground friction model in X-Plane?

[Pete_SMS]

Thanks for you comments!

 

Yeah, the ground friction model of X-Plane is a PITA. I worked on a few things and the Beaver behaves OK. However, I plan to improve it more by using the new forces and moments datarefs, but this will come in an update after the first release.

[Pete_SMS]

Here are pictures of "The office".

 

Landplane Cockpit

 

 

Amphibious Cockpit

[eaglewing7]

She looks better than new, any chance of giving the panel a bit of wear, just to give her some of the character of the birds plying the BC coast?

 

One other thing I wasn't going to mention, you left out the dents on each side of the panel, directly in front of the pilots seats...  Most Beavers have them, especially the ones that have been operating for a lot of years - they are imprints of foreheads, the original Beaver never had shoulder harnesses, so if a Beaver came to grief (which most have in their time), the pilot and forward passenger often ended up getting a rather hard knock to the head on the panel.  Ouch.  

[Jakob Ludwig]

Thanks you taking care of the ground handling, as this something X-Plane is lacking in realism...

And another short question just of curiosity? Have you coded some sort of windshield rain effect? Would be cool to see some water running up and down the glass.

[Pete_SMS]

Oh...no way..the panel looks new from the distance. This is what it looks like close up 

 

[Pete_SMS]

Rain effect is not implemented yet. However, more things and features are to come after the initial release. The Beaver add-on will have a product life cycle with updates along the way and not just bug fixes.

[Jakob Ludwig]

Really appreciate your sense in product support and maintenance. Looking forward.

[Pete_SMS]

The cockpit lighting at dawn...

 

[Jakob Ludwig]

Comfortable like a living room... Like it.

[JohnMAXX]

Pete just want to drop in and say I've been waiting patiently for this guy, I can't wait to have this in my hanger.

Thank you

Edited April 28, 2015 by JohnMAXX

[Pete_SMS]

Thanks guys! 

[Pete_SMS]

Sunday Beaver Update 24

 

Hey,

 

Time for another Sunday Beaver Update. The last week has been very productive and I was able to implement quite a few things and I had lots of fun doing it 

 

So probably you would like to hear what I have been busy with since last Sunday. Okay, here it comes:

 

I know that there are people out there who would use an AP when flying the Beaver and therefore I implemented the S-TEC 50 AP and I guess you have seen it on the screenshots before. This week I spent some time to make all the modes working as they are supposed to work and when I was happy, I did the tuning of the different modes. The result was very satisfying and the AP behaves nicely. 

 

As the AP is located in the lower part of the cockpit, opearing it can be a challenge. Well, not really a challenge, because I even have a view available which zooms in, but I guess you would like to be able to operate the AP while still looking out of the window. Or you want to disconnect the AP at minumums after flying an automatic approach and you wanna do this without looking down, snice you are close to the ground. I hear you and this is the reason why I created a 2D pop-up with which you can control the AP in the same way as with the 3D part. 

 

It looks like this...

 

 

Sounds got some attention as well, and I added doors sounds and the pumping sound when you operate the flaps.

 

Then I spent a lot of time on the ground model behaviour in strong crosswind conditions. As you all know, standard X-Plane behaviour is kind of poor in this area, due to the strong weathervaning effect, but with some plug-in code, I was able to improve this a lot. The Beaver's max demonstrated crosswind component is 10 kts, but I was able to take off and land in winds up to 15 kts now. However, I really had to work hard, in order to not screw up, especially during the landing and slow down phase. I like it a lot now. 

 

Another thing that I never liked so far was the fact that you could often land an amphibious plane with the gear down on water, without any negative impact. This is not reflecting reality though and I had to solve this thing. Also here, my plug-in code came to the rescue. Do a landing now in the amphibious version, with the landing gear down on water, and you find yourself in a world of trouble...

 

The following sequence of pictures of a landing accident was taking in Juneau around lunch time today.

 

 

Well, fortunately the single pilot survived with minor injuries, but the aircraft will be out of order for some time now. 

 

Almost forgot to mention the ropes on the wings. They are animated and swing in the wind, depending in airspeed, power setting etc.

 

Also this week, I had a lot of fun with this new feature again. The feature that was specifically developed for Beaver floatplane pilots. It is so much fun ,that I am thinking now "Who needs a runway when there is so much water."   I guess I will talk about it next week or the week after 

 

Finally a word on XP9. Well, I have the feeling that there are a lot of bush and general aviation pilots out there who are disappointed that the Beaver won't be available for XP9. Well, I hear you guys. I have to say, that I developed the Beaver so far with only XP10 in mind and also the model and textures are setup for it. For example, I am using now 4K textures for the external model and XP9 is not supporting that. Re-doing the work again to make it work with 2K textures again was a no-go. However, I did a quick check and reduced the external texture map to 2K and was afraid that the result would look bad, but it does not. Even with a 2K map, the external model looks pretty nice and sharp. So that resolved a big issue for me. The cockpit and interior was on 2K maps anyway, so that is not an issue either. You can have a look here. The SMS Beaver in XP9. 

 

 

Therefore, I decided to create a version for XP9 as well, but unfortunately it won't make it to the initial realease, because I am very busy to finish the XP10 version.

 

There might be a lot of people thinking "Why is he looking at XP9 while most of the user are on XP10 now. Why is he spending time on this, instead working on new features". Well, I am here to serve you all and I know that there is a decent number of XP9 users out there. Especially bush pilots, who enjoy the fact that XP9 has a lot more water, lakes, rivers at the correct locations, while XP10 is still missing a lot. Also a lot of pilots are using older machines which are barely able to handle XP10 at higher settings, while they can fly XP9 with high setting and high frame rates. So in order to not let these people down, I will work on the XP9 version as well. If I can make a person smile or give him or her a great time while still using 9, I am a very happy person too.

 

So that's it for today. I hope you all have a great Sunday!

 

Pete

[Jakob Ludwig]

Pete... There is nothing to add.. I am stunned, eagerly awaiting her... You're coding and painting magic stuff for us.